IPOB: US Lawmaker Seeks Support For Kanu’s Release

A member of the State of Texas House of Representatives in the United States of America, Mr Jarvis Johnson, has appealed to the US Congress to use their good offices to effect the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, from the custody of Nigeria’s Department of State Services, DSS.
Johnson’s plea is contained in a press release made available to THE WHISTLER in Awka, Anambra State, by Kanu’s special counsel, Barr Aloy Ejimakor, on Wednesday. Johnson, among others, stressed the need for Kanu’s immediate release as a result of his failing health.

According to him, “For months now, it is public knowledge that Kanu’s health condition has deteriorated, and continues to do so on a daily basis. He suffers from serious heart condition and other ailments for which he is not getting medical attention. There is growing concern/fear that the present government of Nigeria intends to assassinate or cause his disappearance prior to May 29, 2023 when it plans to hand him over to an incoming administration.”

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While appealing to his colleagues to ‘use their good offices to urgently intervene with the government of Nigeria to immediately and unconditionally release Kanu from his solitary confinement and end his extraordinary rendition to Nigeria’, the lawmaker added that, “The right of self-determination is a natural right, and is enshrined in our foundational document—The Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It has been, and is our policy and practice to support this right as we are now doing in Ukraine. What is good for the Ukrainians is also good for Kanu and the Igbo race.”

The Congressman recalled how Kanu, a British citizen, travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, from UK on May 12, 2021 and was ‘legally admitted into Kenya’, and how consequently he was ‘abducted in Nairobi by the agents of Nigeria’, adding that ‘he disappeared in Nairobi and was tortured for eight days’.

In his words, “On June 27, 2021, he was extradited by the government of Nigeria to Nigeria. This fact has been admitted by the government of Nigeria via its minister of justice, Mr Abubakar Malami. It was also confirmed by the then Kenyan High Commissioner to Nigeria, who shortly thereafter, died under mysterious circumstances.

“That Kanu was extra-ordinarily extradited/renditioned has been judicially affirmed by the Nigerian courts and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. As a result of the persistence and consistent efforts of the Kanu family, the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and its Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) have engaged in insufficient efforts to secure his release from Nigerian government’s extraordinary rendition.”

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He regretted that despite UN Working Group’s and Nigeria’s courts ‘discharging and acquitting Kanu of all charges, and ordering/directing his unconditional release, the government of Nigeria ‘continues to disobey its own court orders and to ignore the unanimity of laws prohibiting extraordinary rendition’.

He concluded by appealing for the support of fellow Congressmen in accomplishing ‘the urgent, unconditional and immediate release of Kanu’.

Kanu’s IPOB is fighting for the freedom of the old Eastern Region of Nigeria, which hitherto unsuccessfully fought to secede under the name of the Peoples Republic of Biafra from 1966 to 1970.

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